DENVER — Union Pacific CEO Lance Fritz said Monday he believes railroads and unions will begin to reach agreements on new labor contracts, but that he is also “confident” that Congress will intervene if the ongoing labor dispute reaches the point of a strike or a lockout. Fritz, in a brief address to the American […]
CLEVELAND — On-line and in-person meetings last week did not result in an agreement between railroads and unions over a new contract, the heads of two unions said in a joint statement issued Saturday. Jeremy Ferguson, president of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers-Transportation Division (SMART-TD), and Dennis Pierce, president of […]
WASHINGTON — CSX Transportation is pushing back against allegations a local union official has made regarding operations and safety at the railroad’s hump yard in Selkirk, N.Y. A combination of layoffs, crew shortages, changes to remote-control switching jobs, and CSX’s takeover of New England regional Pan Am Railways has created congestion at the yard near […]
WASHINGTON — The parties in the dispute over Amtrak’s effort to launch Gulf Coast service have asked the Surface Transportation Board to extend the period for board-sponsored mediation by 30 days. In a joint motion filed Wednesday, Aug. 24, by CSX Transportation, Norfolk Southern, Amtrak, and the Alabama State Port Authority, the parties say “an […]
WASHINGTON — In a rare occurrence for 2022, U.S. freight rail traffic for the week ending Aug. 20 was up over the same week a year ago — albeit by the barest of margins. According to statistics from the Association of American Railroads, traffic for the week was 501,548 carloads and intermodal units — an […]
FORT WORTH, Texas — BNSF Railway executives have thanked customers for their patience regarding the limited embargo on carload traffic bound for California that began on June 27 and is now set to expire next month. “Beginning Monday, Sept. 5, shipments may move into California without a permit. We recognize the embargo has led to […]
PARSONS, Kan. — Watco will become the rail operator for the Great Plains Industrial Park in Parsons, a 6,800-acre facility with more than 26 miles of rail line, following the transportation company’s selection by the Great Plaines Development Authority. Watco will provide switching, transload, warehouse, material handling, truck, and logistics services for rail and non-rail […]
TULSA, Okla. — OmniTRAX has been named excusive rail partner for the Tulsa Port of Catoosa, an inland port which provides barge access to the central U.S. The long-term agreement became effective Aug. 18. The new Port of Catoosa Industrial Railroad becomes the second OmniTRAX property in Oklahoma, and in the Tulsa area, joining the […]
CHICAGO — Railroads have an advantage over trucks when customers’ shipments have to travel a great distance. Long-haul business is preferred by railroads, aligning with the industry’s focus of moving carloads across the network as efficiently as possible on fewer, longer trains. Shorter moves require the same amount of switching, but don’t necessarily produce the […]
NEW YORK — Domestic intermodal service is running at historically low levels, with trains routinely arriving a day or two behind schedule, J.B. Hunt executives say. “We never saw numbers like this before the pandemic,” Darren Field, J.B. Hunt’s intermodal president, told an investor conference this week. “It’s really a labor and crew issue for […]
NEW YORK — Norfolk Southern and CSX Transportation executives say their railroads are slowly on the mend as more conductors begin active duty and start to ease the crew shortages that have caused widespread service problems. Neither railroad has been able to handle freight demand and both have lost traffic to trucks as on-time performance […]
WASHINGTON — Building on the environmental benefits of rail travel, Amtrak has released its Fiscal 2021 Sustainability Report, outlining its efforts to improve sustainability by addressing greenhouse gas emissions and use of diesel fuel and electricity. Those efforts include the introduction of new Siemens Charger locomotives on long-distance routes, Tier-4-compliant units that emit 89% less […]
